vimiv
An image viewer controlled with vim-like keybindings, with a thumbnail mode and basic editing.
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About vimiv
vimiv is an image viewer for people who prefer the keyboard. Navigation and commands follow vim conventions, so moving through images, switching to a thumbnail grid and running commands all work without the mouse.
This Qt port is the current version of vimiv, and the developers say new features only go into it. It also offers basic editing. The project is developed in the open on GitHub, with documentation, installation instructions and a changelog linked from the repository.
Strengths
- Fully keyboard-driven with vim-style bindings
- Thumbnail mode for browsing folders
- Basic editing built in
Limitations
- Keybindings take time to learn for non-vim users
- Aimed mainly at Linux desktops
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source.
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Developer
- karlch
- Platforms
- Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Vim users who want to browse images from the keyboard
- Categories
- Photo tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to vimiv
Compare allSoftware that can replace vimiv for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
nsxiv
A minimal keyboard-driven image viewer for X11 with a thumbnail mode, forked from sxiv.
nsxiv is also keyboard-driven with a thumbnail mode, but it runs only on X11, has no editing tools listed and is configured by editing source and recompiling.
feh
Lightweight, keyboard-driven image viewer for X11 that also sets wallpapers and lists image files.
feh keeps the keyboard-driven Linux workflow and adds slideshow, list and wallpaper-setting modes, but it is X11 only and offers no editing tools.
Swayimg
A customizable image viewer for Wayland compositors and DRM with Lua scripting, gallery and slideshow modes.
Swayimg targets Wayland and DRM instead, adds Lua scripting, gallery and slideshow modes and wide format support including JPEG XL, HEIC and RAW.
qimgv
A fast, configurable image viewer with basic cropping and resizing and optional video playback.
qimgv adds a Windows build, configurable shortcuts for copying and moving images, and optional mpv video playback, while keeping basic crop, rotate and resize tools.
nomacs
A fast image viewer that opens RAW and PSD files and can show the same picture in two synchronised windows.
nomacs runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, opens RAW and PSD files and syncs two windows, but uses a panel-heavy graphical interface rather than vim-style keybindings.
Oculante
A fast, simple cross-platform image viewer with basic editing tools and wide format support.
Oculante is a Rust viewer for Windows, macOS and Linux with wide format support and basic editing, though the project is now in maintenance mode.
ImageGlass
A fast image viewer that opens the formats Windows still argues about: WebP, JXL, HEIC, AVIF, SVG, HDR and raw.
ImageGlass opens over ninety formats on Windows, macOS and Linux with configurable hotkeys, but some features sit in a paid Pro edition and its non-Windows builds are newer.
Gwenview
KDE's image viewer for browsing collections of images, with simple editing and annotation tools.
Gwenview is KDE's mouse-oriented viewer with crop, resize, red-eye reduction and annotation tools, and it works best inside the KDE Plasma desktop.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Geeqie
Browse and organize images with a Unix desktop viewer.
gThumb
An open-source image viewer and browser for the GNOME desktop on Linux.
Loupe
GNOME's default image viewer, with metadata display and quick crop, rotate and flip edits.
Ristretto
A simple, fast image viewer developed as part of the Xfce desktop environment for Linux.
LXImage-Qt
A lightweight image viewer and screenshot tool from the LXQt desktop project.
digiKam
A photo manager built for libraries of a hundred thousand images, with face recognition, batch processing and heavy metadata support.
